Speaking to Newsfirst, Minister of Child Development and Women’s Affairs, Tissa Karaliadda stated that in addition, new laws will also be formulated to legalise abortion in situations where the woman conceives as a result of incest.

Minister Karaliadda went onto say that the draft legislation in this regard is being compiled in consultation with the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Justice.

Minister Tissa Karaliadda pointed out that under-aged girls conceiving, owing to various forms of rape, has become a serious social issue.

He added that through legalisation of abortion under such circumstances, these victims will be granted some relief.

Courtesy News First

My story is slightly different. I have lived my life with a father who made me feel I was ugly and a mother who connoted I was a slut. May be they thought it was their form of showing love (apart from trying to feed my sister and I, on a mission to eradicate world hunger). Some would think these as minor events of life, but then again sometimes I wonder if it was the case. Dad would describe me to be the one who has “holes on her face with a constant look of annoyance”. (well the holes on the face might be a permanent state, while the look of annoyance could be because he is around, not too sure, but that is the form my father chooses to describe me to anyone who finds and interest in identifying me) Mum on the other hand, has a obsessive need to control anything and everything my sister and I wear. And then any criticism of the choices made would borderline on insinuation on her daughters character. Don’t take me wrong, they fed me and brought me up, and many people deem I am lucky to have them as they paved the way for me to have a good education and for me to be where I am, mentally as well, by building my endurance levels, then again, sometimes when I wonder about all the bullshit I put up in the world whether their verbal modes of showing me “affection” has been contributing in some sense.

When one speaks of domestic violence, they only think of a man beating up a woman. However that is not the only case. One can break down a person continuously with words while messing ones mind into believing that you are a worthless being, who does not deserve respect, and who deserves to eb treated that they treat you.

Over the last decade I have met many people who have been subjected to such behaviour or tried to subject me to such behaviour. I have read men talk of me as I was a worthless being while dating me, and trying to hold onto me with their tears and with “I am sorrys”. I have been with those who claimed I was not good looking but that they loved me, and insinuated that I should be grateful to them for loving me, despite not been the gorgeous being they could have dated. I have heard a man talk to his best friend and tell him how sick I made him feel, while declaring to me that he cannot imagine a life without me, and then go onto state that he wished he was dating some colleague of his.

I always wonder on the amount of bullshit that I put up on a daily basis and then has been accustomed to put up on a daily basis. Sometimes a man may not hit the woman, but his words can be enough to break her being. It is sometimes worse to hear one talk of you in a way that gives you the least level of respect and keep silent when the friend asks “why is she past selling by date?”. We women take a lot things for granted in life, mostly the respect we deserve. I know that most of us are taught from childhood of the greatness of patience. I have tried it for 27 years, but have of late realised that one needs to be patient, but also needs to draw a line where we say “NO. That’s enough!”

Our consulting business model was simple: work for those who can afford to pay us, and also work for those who can’t, pro bono.  It worked up to a point… soon we were so busy working for those who pay us that we had little time to focus on those who really needed our support. In addition, we were forced to dance to tunes that we did not enjoy dancing to, and we love to dance. Our core approach to HIV – one of absolute community empowerment – has proved not too popular. Apparently Sri Lanka  and its people living with HIV is not ready for anything TOO positive when it comes to HIV.

Today’s report on the alleged court room scare underscores the many miles we have to yet travel. Also today, we were sent this flyer by the Consortium for Humanitarian Agencies (CHA) in Sri Lanka. I wonder if there are no agencies working on HIV in this consortium, and if there are, why have they not sensitized their mother ship CHA on HIV in the 21st century? Their magnanimous offer of a free programme on AIDS and psychiatric disorders is fascinating, and we will attend, even if it is to merely understand what role exactly the featured foreign family have to play in the two hour discourse.

And so, after a year of conducting research and programmes that do not really inspire us, we feel it is best to move away from consultancy as our bread and butter, and move towards programming that would allow us to work directly with the most  forgotten group in Sri Lanka in relation to the national HIV response – people living with HIV.  Our plan is to build a HIV unit that will work on 4 key areas -

1. Strengthening existing systems for HIV positive networks

2. Strengthen care and support initiatives.

3. Identify viable forms of income generation so that the community is not dependent on hand outs.

4. Raise awareness across all sectors in Sri Lanka – not just on HIV prevention, but also in terms of the support required for people to live their lives with dignity and justice, regardless of their HIV status.

In addition, Grassrooted will help set up a network of people who use drugs in Sri Lanka. We have observed that almost every community has representation in our country, except people who use drugs. Of course, we are the most vilified of all key affected populations. Moreover, the all too common misconception is that a person who uses drugs is no position to contribute to how programmes and interventions should be conducted. This is about to change.

The road ahead will not be easy, in fact, it about to become extremely difficult, but the time is now. We are ready. Bring on the end of the world as we know it.

The Grassrooted Team

ps. Coming in December 2012 is our end of the world gathering… watch this space.

Gaylord Grasshopper

Confiscating Condoms? The Dumbfounding Ways Police Deal With Prostitution

Each year, scores of new laws are proposed to make prostitution somehow even more illegal than it already is.

January 13, 2012 - It’s not enough for some lawmakers that for the better part of a century, selling and buying sex has been illegal in every state of the union. (The exception is the system of legalized brothels dotting a handful of low-population counties in Nevada, the existence of which has done little to deter an underground, illegal sex trade.) Each year, scores of new laws are proposed to make prostitution somehow even more illegal than it already is.These laws against prostitution don’t simply increase penalties for buying or selling sex; they extend to creating criminal consequences for every aspect of sex workers’ lives. After just one prostitution arrest, a person can be denied a job, an apartment, or the right to parent her children. She could find herself followed by police just for leaving her home.

Though it’s now fashionable for some anti-prostitution activists and lawmakers to position these laws as being of aid to prostitutes, there is absolutely no moral or legal basis for arresting and jailing a person “for her own good.” Yet this is what we have been told about sex workers: that the conditions of prostitution are so horrific that a jail cell is preferable. For sex workers who escape that cell, they still must face the consequences of their prostitution arrest, and in some cases, for the rest of their lives. Today’s new anti-prostitution laws don’t stop anyone from buying or selling sex – instead, they serve as tools for chipping away at people’s rights through profiling and surveillance, a 21st-century continuation of the Scarlet Letter, establishing an entire underclass of people.

Prostitution-Free Zones

Across the United States, sex workers and people who have been profiled as sex workers report being followed and stopped by police under the pretense that anywhere a sex worker might go and anything a sex worker might do in public will lead to a criminal act. The District of Columbia has formalized this system of profiling and surveillance through establishing “prostitution-free zones.” Under this law, the DC chief of police may declare any area a prostitution-free zone for up to 10 days. This empowers officers to arrest “two or more persons congregating in a public space or property in that area for the purpose of engaging in prostitution or prostitution-related offenses,” whether or not they have actually engaged in a crime. A prostitution-related offense includes loitering for the purposes of prostitution – in other words, a vague crime made only more criminal by the creation of a zone where it is even more easy to accuse and arrest you for it. Consequences include up to 180 days in jail and a $300 fine, or both.

In practice, these zones are used to give police the power to sweep entire blocks of people into jail, and overwhelmingly, it is women – women of color and transgender women in particular – who are arrested and fined. The zones end up driving sex workers even further underground, both to live and to work, into yet more dangerous and outlying areas, so as to avoid police harassment. In order to make prostitution invisible, sex workers’ lives are made more dangerous. When a local human rights organization, Different Avenues, surveyed DC residents impacted by the zones in the years following their adoption, they found that 80 percent of their respondents had been refused assistance by the police even when they sought it out. Transgender and Latino residents faced the worst treatment from police. Street outreach workers attempting to provide free healthcare were harassed by police in the zones.

DC police can’t answer who exactly this law is aimed to serve and protect, as it so clearly pits the health and welfare of some of DC’s most vulnerable residents against assumptive notions of “public safety.” How would they explain that being in public as a sex worker is now so potentially disruptive or dangerous that it must be classified as a crime? The threat of people who appear to be prostitutes congregating is apparently so great that even presidents are at risk; in January 2009, a prostitution-free zone was declared in honor of the Obama inauguration.

The law is only more perverse when one considers what a real prostitution-free zone might require in order to be maintained. How far would DC residents wish law enforcement to go? Should they stop and question everyone within the zone? Maybe just the women? Maybe just the women of color? Or maybe just the women of color who “look like prostitutes”? In reality, this is exactly how these laws are used, and now DC is seeking to establish permanent prostitution-free zones throughout the city.

Condoms As Evidence

With the prostitution-free zones, prostitution is understood to be a crime of intent. No one is actually arrested in the act of having or agreeing to have sex for compensation; only for appearing as if they might do so. In the same vein, arresting officers in DC and throughout the US routinely search people suspected of prostitution for condoms, confiscating them as evidence of a crime. For some cops, condoms serve the function that marijuana does in a stop-and-frisk encounter (only there’s no actual law against possessing or using condoms), unless a cop thinks you might be a sex worker or otherwise wants to move you along and into custody.

Sex workers and health and human rights advocates have pointed out that it makes absolutely no sense for publicly funded police departments to confiscate condoms that publicly funded health departments make so widely available. Now in New York, sex workers and allies are pushing for a statewide law prohibiting condoms from being considered evidence of prostitution. Unsurprisingly, this has not been an easy law to advocate for with law enforcement, which claims that district attorneys and vice departments need to be able to use condoms as evidence of prostitution in order to build cases against suspected sex traffickers – even though there’s no evidence that condoms are a key indicator that someone is a victim of trafficking. Meanwhile, while lawmakers fight over this, the Sex Workers’ Project reports that “people are hesitant to carry condoms to protect themselves and others, for fear that it will lead to arrest or be held against them in court.”

The War on Trafficking

Under the guise of “fighting sex trafficking” policy makers and advocates have proposed new laws and police practices that end up targeting sex workers. This is part of a larger move to give police expanded powers and budgets to track and arrest people involved in the sex trade. As Emi Koyama wrote in a Bitch magazine investigation, combatting forced labor in the sex trade is increasingly referred to by advocates and policymakers as the “War on Trafficking.”

Like the War on Terror before it, the War on Trafficking has meant expanded police powers, including wiretapping of suspected traffickers, as well as increased collaboration with federal agencies with the power to indefinitely detain and deport people believed to be involved in trafficking. Illinois is now the first state in the nation to permit law enforcement to tap the phones of suspected traffickers. In August 2011, Cook County police were the first to use wiretapping to intercept thousands of phone calls in an alleged sex trafficking case assisted by the Department of Justice, dubbed “Operation Little Girl Lost.”

However, Illinois’ legal definition of a trafficker is so broad that even nonprofit organizations could be considered traffickers for giving any material aid — food, clothing, shelter, even a Metrocard — to someone in the sex trade if that person is under the age of 18.

In addition, as in DC, young people in Illinois could be less likely to seek out the support of these organizations. Through the adoption of Secure Communities, now a young person picked up by the police could end up being cross-referenced with a database of immigration violations, and find herself and her family detained and deported. With such broad-ranging police intervention in communities, anti-prostitution laws become yet another reason for people to fear the police.

Are anti-prostitution laws like these intended to fight for the rights, safety and well-being of people involved in the sex trade? Or are they premised solely on eradicating prostitution and putting anyone involved in it behind bars? When advocates and policy makers contend that they need more laws to “fight” anything involving prostitution – even if they claim to be doing it to ensure human rights – they must explain in whose interest these laws are. The problem they face isn’t that existing laws simply aren’t tough enough to fight prostitution; it’s that there is very little agreement about who that fight actually serves. The reality is, people still engage in the sex trade knowing that doing so exposes them to possible surveillance, arrest and incarceration. As the sex trade persists in every regard despite the law, why would yet one more law make a difference? Or would it only allow police to cast their net further, jail more people, however they wish?

Melissa Gira Grant has written for Slate, the Guardian (UK), the New York Observer and Jezebel, among others. Follow her on Twitter: @melissagira.

Courtesy Alternet

Yes, sometimes I wanted to run back home but that was an experience I would never have got unless I decided to go on this trip with the Grassrooted team. I experienced real India. It was hard and very different. It was completely different from usual study  tours  we went, had fun, stayed in good hotels, had workshops or trainings inside conference rooms, had meals from the buffet and went  shopping in the evenings. This tour exposed me to the harsh realities of the society.

I LEARNT from the moment we entered Deep Griha Society and when we spoke to those lively people. I was surprised to see kids who were doing the drama (about 9 or 10 years) knowing the full form of HIV and AIDS where as in Sri Lanka we find youngsters over 18years of age still do not know what HIV stands for.

I LEARNT when we all were taken out for a walk by the LADIES IN RED who looked happy, lively and passionate. I LEARNT from the things they explained to us on how they go from house to house, talk to the woman of the house separately, listen to their issues, if there are positive people in the house how they get them involved with the work and how they help them to look after their health and provide access for medicine, more than everything how they enjoy their work and how satisfied they feel when people disclose their issues to them.

I LEARNT from the visit to Meera’s house where she explained a great method of breaking down myths and misconceptions by listening to the questions others have on HIV during their home visits and acting it out the next day and asking the same questions from the audience and replying those questions in front of everybody using performing arts. What a creative and a sensible way to get things OUT of people and break the myths!

I LEARNT from the question Meera asked from all of us “ WHY ARE YOU WORKING IN THIS FIELD AND FOR HIV?” Yes there must be a passion to work for it. Working for HIV should not be done because we don’t have any other choice or just because we get all the funds and benefits. The passion and the heartfelt emotions and real feelings are what matter. Living in slums (but very very rich in hearts) they know it, but some of our people in the field who earn good money do not know it. It’s just another job for them.

They all looked happy, healthy and lively. They all performed superb in the concert. The best part was that they earn for themselves, some of them go to the gym, practice dancing, study while doing a job and earn for their survival. It is inspiring when we compare some of our positive people who are always negative, asking, demanding for their own needs and not doing anything for themselves but thinking it is the responsibility of the state and the NGO s to fulfill their needs.

When myself and Pabz talked to Maya she told us that someone was waiting for her at home and that’s her husband. It was wow! The husband is very understanding and loving to her as she mentioned. They have made their lives very normal, happy and healthy. Why can’t we do it back home? Our young people living with HIV also have the right to get married and it’s of course not a bad idea to get married.

Finally when it comes to DISHA the best part is that positive people and non positive people both work together for the same course without a difference. This is the secret of their success and happiness and independence.

Not only them the peer educators at Pimpri have been working with the people who use drugs, for more than 5 years. They work with them live with them and they know how they feel. They talk to them and they are always with them. That’s the real social work I am talking about. It is not that they are paid in thousands. What matters to them is the work they do not the money. I LEARNT a lot from them and I was fortunate to meet many such people during this tour, who work with their heart and soul but not for money.

Sarah – DDAM – Natalie – EMDS – Soysa

Next day we went DGS around 10 in the morning to take part in the rally, which was followed by an evening event to celebrate World Aids Day; Celebration of Life. The rally was in a way a community awareness event, at the same time it was a union of diverse people. There were about 500 people; more than half were school children. Rally went around Tadiwala Road Slum for about two hours.
A chubby, cute school girl who was just behind us shouted “Pune karanne sage wa” (wake up Pune) with ceaseless energy; she knew all the slogans and she shouted out, very loud, from the beginning to the very last minute of the rally. She enjoyed expressing and educating others; she was even energetic than the nursing students who took part in the rally.
DISHA team was very busy with organizing. This team was the most empowered group of women I have even seen. Positive community in Sri Lanka is considered illiterate and they are often neglected by the donor community in the process of program planning. This is the main reason why they become so dependant and not have any organizational capacity; (also their capacity is not recognized).

There were two characters among DISHA women; Latha and Maya. Living with HIV, they have started their lives from the scratch. Now they live a positive life; they help other people and live happily with their families. These women are from the slums but they are empowered more than our so called HIV activists. As I felt, their strength emerged from thinking about life, rather than death. They did not consider themselves weak or as victims and never expected other people to do things for them out of sympathy.
Thushi and Kapila were so excited about their performances in the evening function when it started. The stage for Celebration of Life was built in the middle of the Tadiwala Road Slum, where they actually celebrated their lives. While Thushi and Kapila got ready for their song performances, Sarah was invited to take part in the fashion show which was performed by kids.
Awards and certificates were given away for the school kids who won the street drama competition which was organized parallel to this event; dramas and songs were performed by several groups including kids living with HIV. This was not about living with HIV but simply about living the life. I have never before seen such positivity in my entire life, though I have worked with positive community in Sri Lanka for more than 5 years.
Sometimes I feel that it is us who have failed in the business, since we have not been able to empower the positive community to reach the positivity experienced in Tadiwala Road. I had to accept what Hans said about this. We are light years behind.

We were heading to Kumar city, Kalyani Nagar, Pune and THE TRIP began. We travelled 24 hours by the train in 2nd class, passing three states, learning black jack, eating parata and drinking chai. The toliets were terrible; (A thing that literally sent Thushi in to shock for 15 minutes)! And all Hans said about that was “TiI”. Amila was counting hours, towns, cities and million other things to pass time.
Any way………, G’s father has come to the station to pick us; it was almost mid night when we reached G’s home; a pleasant, warm, calm, yet lively place.

Next day six of us took two autos and went to 5th lane to see Hans’s friend Abbas. He seemed madly happy to see Hans. This guy works with a care center for HIV positive people; Sahara, and in a dropping center for drug users; Sahara Allah, in Pune which you will know about later. Then Chandu the great philosopher joined us with some great thoughts (especially with the idea of Star fish).
With Abbas, we went the Deep Griha Society which is based in a slum area called Tadiwala road in Pune where Hans had previously worked. The first experience at Deep Griha was a street drama of a group of school children who actually won the first place in a competition which was organized simultaneously with ‘Celebration of Life’. Avinash, the team leader of DISHA (Deep Griha Society’s Integrated Services for HIV and AIDS) explained how they usually engage with people. His team is a group of people most of who are living with HIV. I have never before seen anything like the positivity that they have towards life, family and their work.
Hans has told us so many stories about this place and people, but it was never this close. In that 3 storey building they have a day care center for kids, an OPD, a lab, a computer class, an auditorium, a volunteer room, two kitchens and office staff rooms; It was amazingly organized. Avinash and the DISHA team explained about their care and support programme, nutrition programme and prevention programmes, and we learnt importance of having a referral system, follow up system etc.
Parata and egg were served for breakfast. Maya was the one who made us lovely omelets; (she happily put extra chili for Hans). And we ate literally all we were given. This was when I realized how positive lives their lives were. And then we went to see the slums, after 20 minutes walk we ended up in Mira’s house.
Tadiwala road experience was new to me; we have seen the beauty and the richness of India but not the reality faced by most people; how poor they are and how poor their living conditions are. They have absolutely no infrastructure facilities. However, when we sat down with Mira in her house, I realized that no matter how poor their living conditions were, their hearts were rich. I spent 7 days with these good hearted and warm people and it was an experience of a life time. You will know about Mira, Maya, Sahara, Budwarpet and so many other things later but for now have to go.
While I am missing everybody from Chennai, G, Hans and Abbas are sitting in Abbas’s place and solving world’s problems.

Every year since I got into this business, December 1^st has been a significant day. Now, I struggle to recall why.

In India, World AIDS day for us was about awareness and education. It was the day that the rest of world danced to the beat of our drum. Workplaces opened up to us, schools and universities invited us in, and we got an opportunity to talk about HIV, about people that live with it, and how people continue to die of AIDS in the age of antiretroviral therapy (ART). I remember feeling grateful that there was such a day, an opening, an opportunity to share our messages of prevention and support.

With every year that has passed, I have grown less grateful for the day.  Now, all I feel is disappointment at how empty the dance is, and how soon we forget about the red ribbon and the people that have had their lives changed forever.

Over and over again in Sri Lanka, those within the industry speak about how we need to reach those most at risk. The Global Fund Round 9 Grant on HIV, which has been in the news this year due to their funding of projects where men who have sex with men are educated on HIV and given the tools to prevent it (condoms and lubricants) also has funds for sex workers, people who use drugs, prisoners and our ubiquitous beach boys. Globally too, the focus is rightly on these communities.

If we educate sex workers (male and female) on how to stay safe, then their clients are safe. If we pass on skills the people who use drugs on how to be safe and prevent HIV, then those who share their drugs and often their beds, are also safe. It’s a common sense approach really, although we do dress it up as Public Health.

But these are sustained interventions we’re talking about, programme cycles of three and five years. Not a pinning on of red ribbons, and a rolling out of willing HIV positive speakers to share their stories of burned homes and destroyed lives so that we can feel sorry for them, and so feel better about ourselves. In fact, what has saddened me most about World AIDS Day in Sri Lanka is how we get people living with HIV to perform for us like circus monkeys. Harsh? Perhaps, but if all we look for is heartbreaking story to elicit pity then they are no better than circus monkeys.

The irony is, that people already infected with HIV, are the forgotten. In the National HIV Response, provision for people living with HIV is limited… if not tokenistic. This is not a popular perception. Free ART is often cited as our commitment to the community. This is difficult to argue against. These drugs are expensive, especially the more complicated regimens, and I have seen enough people die because they couldn’t afford these more complex combinations in India. But is the provision of ART and STI services enough?

If we continue to treat people living with HIV primarily as patients, can we then expect them to behave like anything but a patient?

In the industry we talk of how important language is, and how empowering it is to use terms like LIVING WITH HIV as opposed to calling people patients and victims and sufferers. We talk about how ART has changed the world, and about how HIV is a chronic condition that can be managed, and how the quality of life can still be good and great and wonderful. We talk about how people living with HIV can live a NORMAL life, a productive life, a life where even children for HIV positive parents is possible!

Surely we need to move towards a more holistic approach with this community in Sri Lanka.

Let’s be frank. The doctor-patient model is not conducive to empowerment. As the People Living with HIV Stigma Index showed last year, the majority of people that access treatment are from socio-economically deprived backgrounds based in provincial and rural Sri Lanka. (The middleclass and rich with HIV either access treatment in the private sector or if they’re really paranoid of being identified as HIV positive, seek treatment overseas.) Doctors can resemble gods. Doctors can play God. Doctors often are God to their patients in South Asia. This dependency on the medical community in Sri Lanka has given rise to a very peculiar group of people living with HIV.  They’re afraid to say anything that might piss the doctor off. They’re afraid to ask too many questions, even about the drugs that they’re putting into their body. They’re afraid that any form of dissent will result in the non-availability of drugs and government support. So, in private they complain, but in the presence of doctors, they remain silent.

This reflection on the plight of people living with HIV in Sri Lanka, by no means intends broad brush strokes that taint all doctors. There are doctors within the government and private sectors that are loved, adored, even revered by the HIV positive community… but the question remains whether the doctor-patient model alone is sufficient to ensure a responsible and vibrant community of people living with HIV.

Perhaps the very idea of a responsible and vibrant community is abhorrent. This is Sri Lanka. People living with HIV should know their place. Perhaps some of them are to be pitied, like the children and the wives that claim they contracted it from their philandering husbands, but surely acceptance of clearly immoral behaviour is unacceptable to us as a people.

Pity and judgment is all we seem to have in this country for our HIV positive community. There are multiple programmes in place that work towards prevention of new infections. These include the titans of the corporate world that are a part of the celebrated HIV Business Coalition in Sri Lanka. But where is the commitment to care and support in this country; commitment that goes beyond the provision of ART and related services from government clinics? Do we really believe that people living with HIV can remain healthy and live productive NORMAL lives, or is that just something Magic Johnson can do?

We need to redefine HIV in Sri Lanka. Most people still think it’s a DEATH SENTENCE. Just like smokers don’t pay attention to rotting feet and lungs on a pack of Dunhill, people who want to have sex, will have sex, despite all the scorpions and spiders in the world.

Tell them the truth. You can live with it. Also include accurate and comprehensive information about transmission. Don’t just say sex and drugs. Explain! This will help reduce stigma and discrimination that stems from FEAR.

Let’s talk jobs for people living with HIV. As of 2010 we are one of the only countries in South Asia to have robust National Policies in place, including a policy for the workplace that upholds the rights of people living with HIV to continue in employment. Let’s use them!

Let’s talk about real income generation for positive networks – not candle making and basket weaving and card making that bring in a miserable pittance, but a real quality product or products, that can fund their care and support activities. If so, in future, they don’t need to go hat in hand to NGOs and companies that are part of HIV Business Coalitions come World AIDS Day and be disappointed when their tills are not placed within these institutions to collect loose change that will pay for bus fare; they travel around this country speaking to families that have discovered HIV in their midst, and also transport blood samples because some hospitals don’t have the facilities.  Yes, it’s true.

Let’s talk about the meaningful involvement of people living with HIV in the policies and decisions that govern the national response in Sri Lanka. This means that people living with HIV should be given the skills to meaningfully participate, not just make up the numbers, drink their cup of tea and nibble on butter cake.

We need commitment from all the stakeholders to make this happen. This includes above all the communities living with HIV, where much work must be done to change their approach to living with HIV from being dependents to an empowered, responsible and vibrant community.

We’re small enough in Sri Lanka to make this happen! To be an example to the rest of Asia and the world! So, let’s stop talking and make 2012 the year we get this done. Let’s start getting to Zero: Zero New Infections. Zero Discrimination. Zero AIDS Related Deaths.

Getting to zero, backed by a United Nations campaign that will run until 2015, means zero new infections, zero discrimination and zero AIDS-related deaths; a bold and important aspiration. However, to get to zero AIDS-related deaths, we need to realise that one out of every four people living with HIV will die of tuberculosis. Worldwide, TB is the third most important killer of women, the second deadliest infectious disease and the leading cause of death among people with HIV-infection.

HIV and TB are so deeply connected that they are often described as a ‘dual epidemic’. Each disease speeds up the progress of the other; HIV infection is the strongest risk factor for turning latent tuberculosis into active disease, while TB-bacteria accelerate the progress of HIV infection in the patient. Getting to zero AIDS-related death means having to deal with tuberculosis too.

People living with HIV need to be often and properly screened for tuberculosis. They need to receive preventative treatment where necessary and they need to be treated fast and effectively in case of active disease. According to a global plan called ‘Time to act’, published by WHO, UNAIDS and the Stop TB Partnership, a million lives can be saved between now and 2015 by more effectively dealing with TB/HIV co-infection.

Still, scientific modelling shows that tuberculosis will not be eliminated without new, more effective vaccines. Vaccines that are safe for HIV-infected children and that provide better protection against pulmonary TB. Over the past years, scientists have made tremendous progress in the development of these vaccines. We now need to call upon politicians, decision makers, industries and donors to provide them with all the support they need to deliver these vaccines and eliminate tuberculosis.

Jojanneke Nieuwenhuis – CNS
(The author is an Associate Communications and Advocacy Relations, TuBerculosis Vaccine Initiative – TBVI)

Online at: http://www.citizen-news.org/2011/12/world-aids-day-2011-want-to-get-to-zero.html